It was a tough winter across the state, and for many rural Minnesota school districts, that resulted in lots of weather cancellations.
The words "snow day" may be one of the sweetest combinations any student can hear, but they cause major headaches for school administrators. During this year's tough winter, many rural Minnesota school districts repeatedly canceled school.
Now, some school officials worry all those closures could hurt student scores on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment tests in April and May. That's particularly the case for school administrators in rural western Minnesota, whose districts — like many in Minnesota — cover hundreds of square miles.
"I've had more weather-related closings and late starts than I've had in my whole previous career as a superintendent," Alexandria School District Superintendent Rick Lahn said.
Blizzards and ice storms can make it downright dangerous for buses to navigate their country roads, prompting officials to call off school altogether during bad weather.
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Most rural school districts can count on at least one or two snow days a year, but there have been so many this year that superintendents are worried how it will affect their students' performance on the high stakes testing this spring.
Montevideo Superintendent Luther Heller said teachers tell him they're behind in preparing students for MCAs.
"We're very fearful that this will have an impact on how we perform on it," Heller said. "That we will have some students that won't do as well as they would have had we gotten all of the instructional time in that's was as possible to get in."
Because of the snow days, Heller has had to eliminate some of the district's scheduled days off so students have more time to prepare for the tests.
Other rural districts say they'll provide tutoring to students to prepare them ready for the MCAs.
Officials in the Morris School district pushed some testing in May back by a week to give students and teachers time to catch up after the disruptions of several snow days and late starts.
"A week matters," Morris High School Principal Craig Peterson said. "Five more days of instruction matters; it matters for our kids."
Such efforts show just how nervous school officials can get around the results of MCA tests.
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That's because the tests truly are high stakes. Older students need to pass the reading, writing and math portions to get their diplomas. State education officials also judge schools on how well students perform on the tests.
That's why the state allows schools to give many of their tests in windows that range from March until May, said Charlene Briner, chief of staff at the Minnesota Department of Education.
"Those windows are designed to give districts flexibility because we recognize there can be floods, there can be snow days, there can be outbreaks of illness," Briner said. "So we really want to offer districts an opportunity to schedule the testing to meet their needs."
Some Minnesota superintendents say something else would help them in years like this: the ability to start school before Labor Day.
Heller, the Montevideo superintendent, said that give students more time to prepare for MCAs, especially in years with a lot of school closures.
"Even if a district were to be able to start four, five, six days earlier and get more instructional time in prior to the MCAs -- that flexibility would be helpful," he said.
Minnesota law now requires schools start after the Labor Day. But 30 districts, including Minneapolis and two dozen in southwest Minnesota have special waivers to start early.
A bill in the K-12 education omnibus bill at the Capitol this session would allow schools to start before the end of the summer holiday. The issue has come up many times before but failed after opposition from the state's tourism industry.
